Microsoft announces Office for iPad

Microsoft is devoted to providing the tools which enable people from all walks of life to work anywhere and on any device. The ever increasing portfolio of Windows based devices available lay testament to that and with over a billion users of Microsoft Office globally we are now delighted to share that Office for iPad has now been released and is available to download on Apple's App Store.

At the Mobile First, Cloud First Press Briefing yesterday Satya Nadella made his CEO debut and announced that the Office suite including Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel would now be available for use on the iPad.

Within hours of the launch Word became the most downloaded application for iPads within the Apple’s App store, with Excel and PowerPoint following closely behind.

At the event in San Francisco, Satya began by sharing some of the core foundations, this decision would be built upon:

"So first thing is about people. At the end of the day, if you look at our daily life, we have a set of activities that we do. We could be reading, we could be capturing, we could be listening, collaborating, organizing, researching. These are all activities that we do across a variety of devices. We're not bound, in fact, to one device, one place or one time. And the real goal for us is to step up to provide the applications and services that empower every user across all of these devices and all of these experiences. So that's perhaps the job No. 1 that we do, which is to empower people to be productive, do more across all devices."

He also added that the announcement was part of a strategy to empower people to be productive across all devices with Microsoft software.

"We are taking great focus and great care to make sure Office on any device shines through,"

For students and teachers wanting only to view and scroll through their documents on their tablet, the application is available for free, and for those wanting full functionality it will involve an Office 365 subscription (for example through Student Advantage, Office 365 ProPlus for Faculty, Plan A3, etc.).

For students and teachers this opens many doors, particularly in institutions where a BYOD infrastructure is in place, for those students unable to purchase a new device they still are empowered to use the best Microsoft Office productivity tools, with the device they already own.

Satya closed by saying “We are absolutely committed to making our applications run what most people describe as cross-platform great. There's no holding back of anything. It is about being able to excel everywhere our customers are. One of the questions is, is this a massive trade-off for you? There is no trade-off. It's reality for us. It's not a competitive reality. That's not what motivates us. What motivates us is the realities of our customers. What motivates us is to make sure that we build the great experiences that span the digital life and digital work of our customers, both individually and as organizations. And that's what you can count on us doing, both with Windows as well as other platforms. And that's what's driving us”

The official Office Blog talks more about the latest announcement “We thought a lot about what people want to do when they’re on their tablet, iPad functionality, and touch-first when we were building Office for iPad. We reimagined Office on the iPad, while retaining what people love about Office. We hope you’ll be as pleased with the results as we are. In the future, we will bring Office apps to the Windows Store and other popular platforms. In addition to Office for iPad, we’ve gone a step further in our mobile first and cloud first approach, and like Windows Phone, we’ve now made Office Mobile for iPhone and Android phones available for free”